In video distribution systems, encoded video streams may use variable bit-rates to provide a constant quality in the video performance. This may sometimes result in large variances in the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit the video stream. For example, transmission of a constant quality, variable bit rate (VBR) HD video stream encoded according to the H.264 compression standard may vary by over 2000 Kbps between peak and trough transmission rates. This may result in an inefficient use of available bandwidth at the trough and packet loss and/or buffer overflows by a receiving device at the peak. Conventional systems may modify VBR transmit video streams into constant bit rate streams by lowering the size of large frames, such as scene transition frames, but this compromises the video quality of such frames.